Mild Amusement

Ever since our discovery that I will pick a grapefruit clean , the Mild Girlfriend and I have had a running joke about grapefruits. And should we ever eat any, it immediately becomes a source of laughter. But more importantly, she has insisted that she needs to work on her game so that we both eat a comparable amount of grapefruit. It's all quite amusing. Now, she's mentioned that part of her concern is that she doesn't want to get her hands dirty. That's ultimately been my advantage: I've been willing to roll up my sleeves and get in there to get at the grapefruit flesh. Given that we've sometimes worked with plastic spoons, this meant holding the spoon right near the oval part, rather than near the handle (it looks a little bit like a little kid trying to learn to use a spoon for the first time). Those spoons are pretty flimsy, and they can't exactly withstand a lot of pressure. So, I minimize the pressure on the thin plastic handle by grabbing the spo...

It's usually pretty funny talking to married couples. They hit you with all sorts of amusing advice and interesting stories. My sister in law, who originated the very concept of Wife Watch for me , loves to bemoan her married statues. I think I've heard, "oy, why did I get married?" from her a bunch of times after some (amusing) exchange with my brother. Like I said, it's pretty fun to watch. And even though this seems to hold across the board, for some reason it gets even more magnified when sugar is involved. Yes, sugar. The kind that goes into candy and drinks. One of the funnier episodes I witnessed happened when I had to stop in at a grocery store for cough medicine right around Easter Sunday. As I was getting in line to pay, I bumped into two (married) guys who were buying candy for the next day. Just to be clear, these guys were in two separate relationships, so this story is representative of two marriages, not one. One guy was in line with his bag read...

As I mentioned last time, the Mild Girlfriend and I headed down to Los Angeles a while back . We had a good time and we even tried a pretty tasty fusion BBQ restaurant . As good as the food was, though, it wasn't all that amusing. Tasty, yes. Funny, no. For funny, something much less mundane did the trick. All it took was two pieces of tape. You see, we were in the area for an event. The Mild Girlfriend was already part of the festivities, so she was front and center with a lot of the proceedings. I, on the other hand, was more or less there as moral support. There were a few tasks that I could help with, though, so I figured I'd try to be actual support in the process, too. As it turned out, there were a few of us in the same boat. We helped move chairs, pack stuff up, and generally just did small tasks so that other people wouldn't have to do so. It wasn't exactly glamorous, but I don't think any of us particularly cared. Of course, the people who actually kne...

A while back, the Mild Girlfriend and I took a quick road trip to Los Angeles. Neither of us heads down that way all that often, but she had to be down there. Originally, she was going to carpool with some other friends. However, they backed out, and she didn't want to do the drive by herself. So, we decided to make a road trip of it. Now, as we drove down to get to our destination, we inevitably made stops along the way. We had to eat and we had to use the restroom, after all. Sometimes, the two of those things lined up in a convenient mix, and we'd have a full blown restaurant of some sort at our disposal. Sometimes, though, nature's call was too strong, and we had to make a stop for the sole purpose of going to the bathroom. In those cases, gas stations and convenience stores were incredibly helpful. Most of the employees at those stores know you're only there to use the restroom, and they don't care. Still, though, I sometimes felt bad or awkward just standi...

If you ever happen to go wine tasting, you're bound to hear some interesting descriptions of the beverage that you are consuming. I'm starting to pick out a few ingredients in my food , but there's no way I can match all of the adjectives and descriptions that someone describing wine can. I'm not sure I even know what some of those fruits look like, much less what they taste like. Still, one of the more interesting things I've heard is " fruit forward ." Basically, you can really taste the fruit. That doesn't necessarily mean that the wine is sweet, but it does mean that you should be able to taste whatever fruit they put in the wine. It sort of makes sense when you stop to think about it, but it's not a term I hear all that often in daily life. However, the Mild Girlfriend and I just so happened to hear it a while back at a wine tasting thing. It just sort of stuck out in our minds. Now, fast forward a few weeks, and we'd gone out to ea...

Several years ago, I started working out with some friends at work. Specifically, we started doing CrossFit work outs at work . A buddy of mine opened up a gym, and he wanted some company as he tried out this whole newfangled CrossFit thing. It was a lot of fun, so we decided to keep doing it. Ultimately, that led to a different blog where we kept track of the work outs . Funnily enough, that blog itself has led to some hilarity . Now, I didn't start that blog, but it more or less fell into my lap to keep it updated. I used to actually send out emails to people at work, since some people missed the work out. However, at one point, someone decided that they wanted to be able to search through them. Email isn't the best format to search, sort, and filter, so it magically turned into a blog. Either way, though, I happen to be the main contributor to that CrossFit blog. And since I've been writing those blog posts, I have a routine down. I usually reserve Sunday morning...

It just so happens that I had to have blood drawn twice in a short period of time. The first time, I was donating blood with a very interesting technician . The second time, I had to go in for my usual yearly check up. I'm sure other folks have done the same thing before: you check your cholesterol, blood sugar, and various other numbers related to your relative health. Basically, they want to actually measure how healthy you are. In order to do so, though, they have to draw blood. This wasn't my first time having to do this, so I knew the routine. I showed up early in the morning, got my number, and waited for my turn (it's not a particularly hard routine). All in all, that whole portion of the interaction was relatively smooth. I always end up wishing that they would call my number faster, but it's not like I had an unreasonable wait. Like I said, it was a pretty reasonable, mundane wait. The actual blood draw portion, however, was slightly less mundane. The nurse...